The Pursuit of Glory - The Five Revolutions that Made Modern Europe: 1648-1815 (Paperback)

Reviews

Reviewed by Tanya K. - 26 February 2024

Informative but bland and tedious. The book is a survey of various social, economical and political aspects of various European states from 1648 at the end of the 30 Years War to the end of the Treaty of the Congress of Vienna (i.e. the final exile of Emperor Napoleon I). The narrative structure is vague and lacks some sort of overarching, cohesion. The organization of the book into thematic blocks (rather than geographically or chronologically) doesn't make for a pleasant reading experience. The various themes come across as detached from each other and it's not always clear where everything fits in and what events influence each other. The author also assumes the reader is fairly knowledgeable about this period of "European" history (i.e. mostly British with a fair amount of French and not so much Habsburg or Prussian and even less of everyone else's history). This is not a book I would recommend for the casual reader. Note: The book includes a handful of maps, but a time line would have been even more useful/helpful. There are no end notes or references, just a bibliography.